MOVIE MUSIC UK

Original Review by Jonathan Broxton

Terrence Malick is a most unusual director. Unlike most of his contemporaries, he seems wholly unconcerned with narrative, plot, and incisive dialogue, and instead seems completely obsessed with visual beauty. He’s like a painter, but instead of using canvas, he uses film, and his subjects move and speak. His films are deep, intimate ruminations on life, love, nature, and the human condition, full of existential narration and long, lingering shots of Mother Nature at work. His latest film, The Tree of Life, is only the fifth theatrical film of his entire career, following on from Badlands in 1973, Days of Heaven in 1978, The Thin Red Line in 1998 and The New World in 2005. It stars Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, Jessica Chastain and Fiona Shaw, and follows the life of a twelve year old boy from American Midwest named Jack, whose world view is shaped both by his optimistic and idealistic mother, and by his pessimistic father, and who must make a choice on how to live his life in an ever-changing, confusing world.

Terence Malick is also a notorious perfectionist and micro-manager on set, insisting on total control on every aspect of production, including the music. Prior to this film Malick had only ever worked with three major composers – Ennio Morricone, Hans Zimmer and James Horner – and messed around with Horner’s score so much on The New World that great swathes of it were replaced by classical music, and what was left was invariably chopped and changed and edited beyond all recognition in the final cut. Alexandre Desplat provided the music for The Tree of Life, and in response to the film wrote a score which adopts a similar dreamlike and contemplative tone, enhancing Malick’s imagery with a subtle, almost minimalist sound that reflect the analytical and introspective tone perfectly. Some of the cues, especially towards the middle of the album, provide some examples of Desplat’s contemporary classical style at its very best. Unfortunately, for long periods of time, the music is also exceptionally dull.

Written for a small symphony orchestra and recorded in London, The Tree of Life has all the credentials to be a success, but seems to flounder under the pressure of its own weight, importance and Oscar-bait status. For long time listeners to Desplat’s work, there are subtle echoes of scores like Birth, Girl With a Pearl Earring, and especially The Painted Veil, but without the unique personality of any of them. In fact the whole score is quite a frustrating experience; it’s like listening to a dozen or so cue intros, build-up pieces, waiting for a melody which never properly emerges.

Desplat has a habit of picking one musical phrase, style, or instrumental texture and repeating it ad nauseum for up six minutes at a time, so that even though you thought it was interesting and unusual at the beginning, you are begging for it to change by the end of the cue. The orchestrations are clearly steeped in Desplat’s oeuvre, from the light and airy xylophone and glockenspiel runs, harp glissandi, delicate woodwind phrases, and even the familiar synth pulse that has appeared in virtually all his scores to date, but thematic content is almost entirely lacking, giving the score a pleasing tone for its entire running time, but virtually no memorable content with which the listener can connect.

The opening cue, “Childhood”, is little more than a series of bare piano chords over a bed of whining strings. The merest hint of an emerging theme peeks through occasionally, but it’s so understated as to barely be there. Later, “Awakening” is also as stripped down as it is possible to be, barely registering much more than repetitive piano chords and a subliminal string wash. In “Circles”, Desplat’s endlessly oscillating tones are given weight by staccato bass chords, floaty violin accents, and fluttering flute lines, and the tempo and energy of the piece does pick up towards the middle of the cue, but at over 11 minutes in length the appealing moments are overshadowed by the amount of time you spend waiting for them to appear. “Circles” is actually a very apt name for the cue, as it returns to the same minimalist textures at the end.

The piano chords are replaced by gentle harps and warmer, more inviting strings in “Clouds”, while in “River” Desplat provides a virtuoso piano element, churning and swirling with Philip Glass-style syncopated rhythms, illustrating the endless movement of water. Later, the all-too-brief “Motherhood” is a more upbeat and prominent dance-like piece with undulating, hesitant string and piano writing, harp glissandi, and more elegant and romantic tone which is quite appealing. The flipside of motherhood – appropriately – is “Fatherhood”, in which the piano has a similar rhythmic core, but a much darker aspect, clearly reflecting the ying-and-yang positive-and-negative influences young Jack has thrust upon him by his parents. These four are probably the best four cues on the album.

At the other end of the scale, however, cues like “Emergence of Life”, “Light and Darkness”, “Good and Evil”, “City of Glass” and “Temptation” are little more than shifting chords, bare-bones instrumental textures and synth pulses that rumble ceaselessly for ever, with “Light and Darkness” lasting for nigh on nine minutes, and “Temptation” for almost eight. I’m loathed to call these cues boring, because I completely understand and appreciate the attention to detail and level of skill required to create mesmerizing soundscapes such as these, but I still found my attention wandering during each of them. The finale, “Skies”, ends the score with a whisper, returning to the repetitive gossamer-like textures of the opening cue, this time featuring harps, woodwinds, glass bowls and high end pianos.

In an interview with Variety, Desplat explained Malick’s instructions were for the music to be “like a river flowing through the film, something that flows and never stops, very alive and fluid”. He also said that the score was “meditative and trance-like” and that that Malick’s aim was to integrate Desplat’s score seamlessly alongside the classical works by 19th century romantic composer Hector Berlioz and modern composer György Ligeti which also feature in the film. On a conceptual basis, I understand why Desplat wrote the score in the way he did, and I can appreciate the technical mastery and compositional excellence in writing music such as this. Ultimately, though, emotional reactions are what draw me to film music, and for the first time in a long time my emotional reaction to this Desplat score was to wish that it would hurry up and finish.

Rating **½

Buy the Tree of Life soundtrack from the Movie Music UK Store

Track Listing:

• Childhood (3:41)
• Circles (11:23)
• Clouds (2:59)
• River (3:35)
• Awakening (3:29)
• Emergence of Life (3:55)
• Light and Darkness (8:17)
• Good and Evil (3:15)
• Motherhood (2:04)
• City of Glass (3:36)
• Fatherhood (2:49)
• Temptation (6:47)
• Skies (5:18)

Running Time: 61 minutes 08 seconds

Lakeshore Records LKS 342172 (2011)

Music composed and conducted by Alexandre Desplat. Orchestrations by Conrad Pope, Jean Pascal Beintus and Sylvain Morizet. Recorded and mixed by Stéphane Reichart. Edited by Peter Clarke. Album produced by Alexandre Desplat .